p2 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY . 
to follow. It is to this point that agriculture, in its various 
forms of field-culture, stock-breeding, fruit-growing, etc., has now 
come. But, few even yet of the great mass of farmers, seem to 
be thoroughly awake ; still these are bringing into the work of 
improvement so much brain and energy that the contagion of 
their example, and the eloquence of their success, will, in time, 
bring over the skeptical and the sluggish. 
Wisconsin is determined to take her place near the forefront in 
this march of progress. Few states of the union can boast of 
more varied industry, and none can claim natural advantages of 
a higher order or wider range. While her agriculture is advanc¬ 
ing with rapid strides, her mining, lumbering, and’manufacturing 
industries, are keeping even pace. The busy city, near whose 
limits we are met, furnishes, in the record of her growth, incon¬ 
testable evidence of the enterprise and prosperity of the state. 
The first State Fair I attended in Milwaukee was in the year 
1859. This was then, to be sure, a beautiful city, rising here by the 
lake. But the population was scarcely half what it is to-day. 
The financial crisis of 1857 had struck her an almost vital blow, 
and she was suffering, partly in herself and partly through sym¬ 
pathy with the rest of the country, from paralysis of enterprise and 
from all the evils which hard times bring to a stricken people. 
The great war followed with its mighty drain upon the young 
life-blood of the city, and with a train of blighting influences, 
which war inevitably leads on. But looking around to-day, one 
would scarcely suppose there had ever been a blight upon her 
prosperity or a shadow upon her path. Her population since 
1859 has doubled. Her railroads, which then only touched the 
Mississippi at two points, now radiate in every direction. She 
has become the first primary wheat market, and one of the first 
primary grain markets of the world. The total receipts of cereals 
at Milwaukee in 1859 were 7,700,000 bushels, while for the year 
ending Aug. 30, 1873, they were 30,400,000 bushels. In the 
year first named, her reported manufactures hardly exceeded in 
value $2,000,000; in 1872 they were nearly $20,000,000. Other 
statistics of equal significance might be given, but these I have 
offered more for the purpose of illustrating the resources and 
capabilities of our young state, than otherwise. But in the 
